


Snake in a Tin

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Backstory, Episode: s07e00 Pond Life, Fanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 16:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1274035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We saw what happened in the Pond Life minisode, but what else happened during the time in between seasons? Timey-wimey-ness ensues. Don't worry; we didn't forget the bananas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snake in a Tin

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I started this fic a while back with no particular plot, so if it doesn't seem understandable, leave a comment please! But if you have a problem with the linearity of time travel, then good luck!

[11th Doctor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleventh_Doctor), between 6th and 7th season,  During [Pond Life minisode](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXAY7LyjcM)

A tin of sliced, dried bananas.  The Doctor had once thought he put one of those silly “[snake in a tin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_nut_can)” pranks in that tin, you know, one of those old jokes that used to be often sold in joke shops. They were made popular in the year 1915 by a man named [Samuel Sorenson Adams](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sorenson_Adams). Sure, Samuel was a great guy, full of great, humorous ideas, but he made a crucial mistake in his predictions of the future of the practical joke. The Doctor was a good friend with Adams, but ever since after the Doctor took the effort to go alllll the way back to the year 220 to “borrow” a prototype [whoopee cushion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopee_cushion) from the 25th Roman Emperor [Elagabalus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus) so that Samuel could bring back its popularity and make a profit off of it as well, Sam didn’t react the way the Doctor had hoped.  Instead of rejoicing at discovering the next big trend in his industry, Adams was disgusted once he discovered what it did, rejecting the labor of the Doctor’s work and even going as far as to describe it as “too vulgar,” and saying that it would never sell. But perhaps his negative reaction might have been induced by the fact that the Doctor “just happened to drop it” right on the poor man’s chair at the beginning of an important meeting with his superiors at work. After that, their friendship started to go downhill.

However, since the rise of the whoopee cushion had a significant effect on the pranksters and their pranks in the 20th century through the 24th (people stopped using them by then since the invention of fire emitting version; nobody could tell the difference between those and the regular type, resulting in an overall boycott on anything remotely similar to a whoopee cushion) something had to be done to bring the whoopee cushion up in popularity; the Doctor was only having a bit of fun; he didn’t want to skew the entire history of the human race. The end result was that the Doctor took on his human name of “John Smith,” (but sometimes going as [Alfred](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Smith_Company), as the name John Smith occasionally brought up some suspicion. Plus, he was honoring his old pal, [Alfred Nobel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel), he owed the man a favor) and started his own mail order gag shop called the [Johnson Smith Company](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Smith_Company). It was great fun, and his business shot up after the “funny, new, and utterly cool” whoopee cushion was sold under his company name.

He realized he couldn’t live his life like that forever. He still had to fix that stupid [helmic regulator;](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Helmic_regulator) when he was trying to land around 220 CE, the helmic regulator went [wibbly ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw)and he landed and got stuck in the year 220 BCE, in China, where the entire country was separating its regions and starting the beginnings of the [Great Wall.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall) After some pleading with the emperor [Qin Shi Huang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang), an episode with some bearded guys ending up covered in [some freshly cooked pasta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pond_Life_\(Doctor_Who\)), and some telepathic communications with some very social birds, he was able to find his way back to the TARDIS, which had been lost in the freshly planted trees on some country roads in the smack-dab middle of China.

With a few tweaks from his trusty [sonic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_screwdriver), he had temporarily [reversed the polarity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Doctor#.22Reverse_the_polarity.22) of the regulator and landed right in the middle of one of Elagabalus’s dinner parties. Literally. On the center of the table. Blame it on their eyesight? A draft just happened to blow in this great blue box that looked a lot like the one depicted with the [household gods](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fires_of_Pompeii#Plot) of another Roman family 141 years before? Excuses, excuses. However, even with all that to explain (awkward), he still managed to hook up with [Julia Cornelia Paula](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Cornelia_Paula), as she had just divorced Elagabalus and was very “available”. She was heartbroken once again, after her new lover told her that he couldn’t stay. So a compromise was made. No one knows for sure where she ended up after that, but somewhere in the future, on a distant peaceful planet, a Roman noblewoman was queen, a woman that looked a lot like Julia Cornelia Paula. She  found a new love and ruled the planet in contentment. The Doctor couldn’t go through that entire ordeal every time the [helmic regulator](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Helmic_regulator) had a fuss, so he made a little scheme to keep the company going without him being there.

He traveled to the year 2045, where he found a man of extraordinary likeness to him in looks (appearing to be a bit older, though). This human man had suffered amnesia ever since a strange accident with a giant living pepper pot had blasted his memory right out of his head, or so the records said. It sounded very much like a [Dalek](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek) to him, but there were no records of mass extermination from any time in this man’s lifetime, the mark of a true Dalek. If there was any Daleks in his lifetime, at least the Doctor knows that he was probably there to stop it. This man’s life: So linear. So boring.

In the end, it was a very publicized event, with great coverage from the media but virtually no visual record at all. For some reason, nobody seemed to have a picture of the poor man after the accident. Before the “attack of the giant pepper pot,” (as the local media had christened it), this guy was a popular actor in a [well-known sci-fi show](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who) on the telly in the 2010’s. (The Doctor didn’t much like science fiction. Too much fiction, not enough science.) But after the show moved on and he stopped the show, his fame declined exponentially, as the media found more young, more fascinating people to follow. Acting jobs became more sparse as the years went by, and by the time of the unfortunate accident, nobody seemed to care. At least, not until the ex-actor had a disappearance on his name: [Matthew Robert Smith](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Smith_\(actor\)). The Doctor liked his name. Maybe he should use it one day.

The Doctor thought he knew why he disappeared, he needed a favor. After all, his disappearance was a fixed point in history; it had to happen. Who is he to argue with history? The Doctor did some [timey wimey](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw) [telepathic tweaking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Nature_\(Doctor_Who_episode\)) in his head, and implanted all his knowledge of jokes, pranks, and the humor industry in the empty mind of the ex-actor. A while after the Doctor did this, he sent the doppelgänger a few years later into the timestream of the first Alfred Johnson Smith, using foreign travels as an excuse for leaving for a few years and also providing a plausible excuse for the fact that the new Alfred looks more aged than the old one. Matt Smith was back in the 20th century, where he thought he belonged, as he really believed he was Alfred Johnson Smith. Nobody thought anything different about this doppelgänger, so no one was affected for the worse. The Doctor was happy to hear that he lived a peaceful life afterwards, having a fun time until dying quietly in his sleep in 1948.

But he was still pretty sure there would be some bananas inside after the can let the coiled springs out. nothing intentionally scary, really. just a harmless prank to maybe set on one of his companions if they ever sought his snacks. He set the trap some time after that [wild partying in France](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_in_the_Fireplace); he had a massive banana craving after that adventure. While Rose and Mickey talked inside the TARDIS, the Doctor had set the coordinates for the [Villengard banana grove](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doctor_Dances#Continuity) and stocked up. The TARDIS kitchen was stuffed with [banana daiquiris](http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Banana), banana tarts, plain old bananas, and his favorite, dried banana slices.

The Doctor couldn’t leave the new Alfred without taking a souvenir, so he packed up a couple jokes in inconspicuous places for later enjoyment. He was pretty sure that this was the storage place of a snake in a tin, but that there would at least still be some bananas in there; the springs and several pounds of dried banana slices could be kept in the small tin, as [Time Lord Science](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS) allowed. He figured that the slices would still be fresh, given that food rarely ever goes to spoil in the TARDIS. It travels through time and space, and as an extra perk, it keeps your food fresh! The Doctor was still sitting in his memories when he realized that there was a grin on his face.

~

During this rush of memories, it occurred to the Doctor how many memories can come from just a simple little tin. After all, in all his time in traveling, he's never had anything that wasn't important in its own special way.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... thank you for reading! It started as a drabble and it became a bit longer, but I think it's an amusing little read. Constructive criticism is welcomed in the comments. Not bad for a first fic, huh. :) Stay freezy, because cool is too mainstream.


End file.
